The present invention relates generally to systems for maintenance and management of health for individual patients including Communication Systems for remote monitoring and controlling of large collections of individuals, persons or devices, and is also related to Artificial Intelligence for managing and maintaining the patient""s good status and trouble-free health.
In most western societies, namely the United States and Europe, more than 30% of the population have serious chronic health problems that challenge them in many aspects of their daily lives, especially when they are working, traveling, or playing sports. The annual medical cost in the U.S. has soared to more than $10,000 per person with health problems. To lower and control these costs, home and preventive healthcare programs have been launched and promoted by insurers and politicians that are delivered by mostly small local caregivers at different locations in the country. The success of these programs was expected to be significant, especially when modern tools and methods of communication were designed, as described in earlier patents, for different, interactive and interesting hardware systems and electronic data processing, or, EDP methods.
But all these efforts do not escape the fact that life expectancy has climbed faster than any corrective measures. Sooner or later we will nearly all be a part of the group of persons who have to be constantly monitored. In these modern societies we mostly live on our own with no other person in the home. Also, many retired people""s homes will only accept us if we can still move around freely and do not have to stay and be served in bed all the time, because the next weakness or dizziness cannot be predicted or immediately assessed and reacted upon.
Many tele-medical systems have been designed and described in detail, but they have not really been widely used and have not contributed to successful optimization of costs and services. The main reason for this is the limited use of existing technology in hardware and software by medical caregivers and therefore only a limited range of services are conceived and delivered.
An object of the invention is to provide a system for the maintenance and management of health which permits easy and complete access to all important data of the patient to be treated. The system comprises condition monitoring devices that measures physiological data of a patient; a supervision device that assesses the measured physiological data and transmits alarm signals and event information to caregivers; an evaluating device that compares problems and patterns of the measured physiological data and provides the caregivers with recommended corrective action; and a communication system that transmits alarms and recommendations to a supervisor.
The main advantage of the system according to the present invention is that all important data can be retrieved immediately at any location so that caregivers such as doctors and emergency services personnel can immediately decide which treatment or therapy to give.
Systems used for the management of large industrial plants such as those used to control and maintain large oil refineries, or to monitor remote pump stations along pipelines have been known for 20 year. Such systems utilize the latest sensor technology with high-speed communications and extensive Artificial Intelligence in central supervision stations. Repair and preventive maintenance costs have been reduced to the lowest optimized levels, while availability of very complex plants has increased and can be guaranteed today to 100% over 30 years.
The functions to be implemented in an efficient and optimized health maintenance system of large groups for individuals, spread over rural areas, are very similar to management systems that secure the safe and efficient operation of all the installations in a large metropolitan subway system. The medical maintenance system according to the present invention combines the advantages of standard medical sensors and well-trained medical personnel in hospitals, doctor""s offices, wide-spread walk-in clinics, and emergency services with the leading technical maintenance intelligence with the most efficient and most widely used traditional communication tool, the telephone.